


love don't cost a thing (except your first-born child)

by Fictionalistic



Category: Anitaverse, Original Work
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 19:10:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1790023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fictionalistic/pseuds/Fictionalistic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all mothers know when to let go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love don't cost a thing (except your first-born child)

Quinn is crumpled in the corner, the misshapen angle of his shattered arm resting against his thigh and blood dripping steadily down his chest. With something close to relief, Tango notes the regular rise and fall of his chest. She memorizes the rhythm, puts it to music in her head, and keeps time.  
  
 _And-five-six-seven-eight…_  
  
She shouldn’t be surprised he’s still alive, not when she saw the preternatural flash of yellow eyes and the length of his arms swallowed up by inky black pigment, ending in talon-tipped fingers. Perhaps a hint of fur at his elbows.. She’s certain she’ll be shocked later - the apparent existence of werewolves and all, but for now, all she can focus on is the woman standing in front of her, Quinn’s blood coating the side of her smiling face like misappropriated Halloween war paint.   
  
The wildly inappropriate voice in her head says that she looks, well,  _good_  in gore. Tango can’t help but agree as she eyes the woman she once called her fiancee. Ruse Maddox is dressed to the nines, a creme ruffled blouse and fitted pinstripe trousers that pool neatly over Giuseppe Zanotti lacquered pumps. That blood is slowly making its way down the length of her blouse doesn’t take away from the striking look.   
  
And it’s just that, Tango remembers with a grimace, a look. She meets Ruse’s crinkled blue eyes coolly, only the barest tremble of her hands betraying the emotion straining against her ribs.   
  
"Hey, baby," Ruse croons, casually waving a bloody hand.   
  
And god help her, Tango misses hearing that smooth contralto voice on Sunday mornings when Ruse had let herself take a day off from whatever she did (art fraud, money laundering,  _murder_ ) and they just lay together murmuring everything and nothing, tangled limbs heavy with sleep, until Dien inevitably disturbed them for breakfast.   
  
A singular groan cuts in, and both women turn to look at the unconscious man propped against the wall. Tango glances back, quickly enough to see the remnants of a smug expression slide off of the con-woman’s face.   
  
"Hello, Sharuz," Tango isn’t thinking about old memories anymore. She can’t, not right now. "You look well."  
  
Ruse heaves an affected sigh, a pout forming on ruby-red lips.   
  
"Pleasantries and my full first name? I’m disappointed, honey." A grin cuts abruptly across Ruse’s face as she winks at her stoic ex-fiancee.  
  
"And I suppose I do look good, at least compared to him," she motions to Quinn with a jerk of her head.   
  
Tango’s eyebrows lift scornfully. “Yes, though he looked considerably cleaner before you butchered him. A pocket-knife, Sharuz? How barbaric.”  
  
Ruse shrugs, the tumble of her red hair slipping over her shoulders. “Wasn’t exactly expecting Teen Wolf over there, and I’m out of bullets in this safe house.”  
  
"Mythical creature-status aside, Quinn is with me." Tango can barely suppress a smirk at the possessive gleam that enters Ruse’s eyes at the specific phrasing. "He simply accompanied me to finish some unfinished business."  
  
"With me?" Thickly-fringed green eyes widen in plastic innocence. "You decided you want to be Mrs. Maddox again?"  
  
"We never agreed I would take your name, and no, our business does not involve our trainwreck of an engagement.   
  
It’s Dien.”  
  
At her son’s name, Ruse starts, and in a blink of an eye, her entire face darkens. The hand holding the pocket-knife tightens.  
  
"He’s  _mine_.”   
  
Tango, used to Ruse’s fits of possessiveness, only stares back in maddening impassivity.   
  
"He stopped being yours the moment you started using him as a pawn in your dangerous little games. And he was never mine, but I surrendered him to people who would - no,  _could_ care more than you or I would.”  
  
"It wasn’t your place," Ruse spits out, the blade in her hand flashing as her arm jerks in anger. Tango eyes the blade carefully, but the time of Quinn’s breathing keeps a reassuring rhythm in her mind.   
  
"It was when you introduced him to your thugs, and called them his new teachers." Tango pauses, allowing a note of regret to enter her voice. "He deserves a better life than you can give him, Ruse."  
  
"What? Would a life of luxury and endless wealth not suit him? The best education money can buy and more decent food than the common street rat can even fathom?"   
  
"None of that would matter if he goes to sleep every night to visions of death. After all, Dien’s a smart kid, and you would have had to teach him where all that wealth comes from eventually. And how you favor obtaining it. He would have learned what it felt like to steal someone’s life."   
  
Tango thinks back to the way Dien openly cried when one of his pet songbirds died of old age. A person with that much empathy, he’d break under his mother’s thumb.  
  
"Yes, but he would have been safe. He would have been safe with me, Tango, I promise it.”   
  
"You don’t really believe that, do you? That you could protect him from the evils of your underworld." As soon as Tango says it, she regrets it. She sees Ruse’s eyes swim, lost in old delusions, and knows that yes, Ruse did believe she could protect her son. There’s the woman she fell in love with, the person who promised to be an anchor and a safeguard.   
  
"You can do good by him, if only by letting him go."  
  
The pocket-knife drops from numb fingers.   
  
"He’s the best of me, you know," Ruse croaks out hoarsely, tears mixing with blood-splatter on her cheeks. "The best thing I ever did."  
  
Without hesitation, Tango reaches Ruse in five long strides, and gathers the shorter woman in her arms. In her loose embrace, she can feel the anguish rolling off Ruse in tight sobs, and she can’t resist tucking her tighter against her chest.  
  
"I know," Tango murmurs into the top of Ruse’s head, "I know, I know, I know."  
  
—-  
  
Later, when Quinn wakes up in the passenger seat of the old Toyota, his broken arm caught in a make-shift sling, chest freshly bandaged and covered in a clean oxford shirt, he doesn’t say a word. He knows without looking that it’s Dien snoring away in the backseat.  
  
He glances at Tango’s carefully blank face and the faint red smudges on her sweater, smells a foreign floral scent clinging to her skin, and turns his gaze to the rain-splattered window. For all of his interference, it’s none of his business.  
  
The rest of the car ride back to New York is filled with the soft buzz of Dien’s slumber and Tango keeping time slowly under her breath.

 


End file.
